Bloodshot
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: Written for Yuletide 2013 for Filigranka! Yuletide Prompt: "Spike, Vicious - I'd like to finally read some gen stories about them, exploring them as friends, not as lovers."


Written for Yuletide 2013 for Filigranka. Original Prompt: _Spike, Vicious - I'd like to finally read some gen stories about them, exploring them as friends, not as lovers._

**Bloodshot**

The diner is dark and smoky, and Vicious has ordered coffee. A misty rain pats down outside, recasting the neon lights into soft, otherworldly colors.

Spike slouches forward in the two-seater booth, one elbow on the table as he idly watches the old box of a salvaged screen affixed to the wall above the grill. There's a staticky transmission of a new, illegal broadcast flashing behind a fine film of burger grease.

A young blonde woman comes onto a bare bones set with her hands clasped over her rather ample bosoms.

"Big Shot!" comes her shrill voice, bubbling out of the tinny speakers with a giggle. "Our new series! Now, all you bounty hunters out there, listen up-"

The broadcast abruptly cuts out; some cursing is heard, and then the screen goes black.

"Buncha lowlifes if ya ask me," says the waitress, appearing with a chipped, white cup. She sets it down with an unceremonious clink of ceramic and fills it up with steaming, burnt coffee; then moves to pull a remote control out of her starched, pink apron. She vehemently flips the channel to a bad kung-fu movie in old Technicolor.

"Don't like lowlifes, huh?" Spike asks. A half-smile pulls at his mouth as he leans back lackadaisically against the red vinyl booth, reaching into his jacket.

The waitress visibly stiffens with movement of his hand, but he comes away with only a pack of crumpled cigarettes.

A sudden laugh, rough like sandpaper, grates through the air, and she turns into surprise.

"Bad habit," Vicious says in that gravelly monotone of his. "Seems like smoking is something a lowlife might do."

If Hell had a badly tempered guard dog, it might sound like Vicious.

"Might do," Spike agrees with a shrug, pulling out a wrinkled cigarette between his lips. The lighter flares, and without missing a beat, Vicious lifts his cup and pushes the unused saucer across the green Formica table.

The waitress's eyes widen, and then her cheeks flush with anger. She's an older woman, unaccustomed to taking young upstarts' bullshit – Spike knows someone like her. Unfortunately, unlike his colleague, the waitress doesn't have guns, liquor, or Syndicate connections.

He inhales and watches as the end of his cigarette flares red, flicks gray ash onto the saucer, and exhales a long, lazy stream of fragrant smoke.

"You got eggs?" Spike asks.

"Yeah, we got eggs," she replies, her voice tense with anger.

She wants to bust their heads in; problem is, she knows who they are.

Vicious smiles again from the rim of his cup and Spike settles back into a slouch against the seat.

"Eggs sound good," Spike replies, crossing his legs and ashing again into the saucer. It's slowly accumulating, building a little mountain of gray refuse.

She scratches the order so hard onto the pad, it rips under her pen.

"How you want 'em done?"

"Over easy."

"A little raw," Vicious adds, and that laugh is back. "A little runny."

"Don't get messy now," Spike says, grinning around his cigarette.

To her credit, the waitress possesses a sense of self-preservation, and she disappears quickly, tacking up the ripped order above the grill with others.

Spike and Vicious sit together quietly – smoking and sipping, respectively – existing as mere fixtures, observing.

When Vicious lifts his eyes, though, to stare directly at the door, Spike follows his gaze. They've always worked surprisingly well together.

There's a flower vendor standing in the doorway, seeking entrance to go from table to table, offering her wares for sale. She's awkwardly toting a plastic bucket full of roses, a little water undoubtedly at the bottom to keep them looking presentable.

The cashier at the door who's unapologetically smoking stinking, hand-rolled brown paper cigarettes, curses and tells her to get out. When a customer walks up to cash out and starts haggling over the bill, though, the flower vendor slips by.

They both watch her warily.

She goes slowly from table to table, soft-spoken and offering roses. No one is buying, but the red blooms are a striking interruption in the drab diner's interior. Even the red vinyl of the seats is dull in comparison.

"Just two Woolongs," she says, shuffling toward their table.

"They'll die," Vicious replies, pinning the girl with his eyes mercilessly. "You're selling death."

Ironically, they're all in the same business.

"I'll take one," Spike interrupts, flipping two Woolongs onto the table. They land there with a clink between him and Vicious.

She stares at Spike for a moment, and as their eyes meet, he feels something cold run through him.

"Thank you," she says, gathering up the coins and settling a rose on top of the table, as if she's afraid to touch his hand. "God bless you."

Spike's stomach grumbles, and he scowls. He picks up the rose and the thorns bite into his finger - a few drops of blood drop onto the table, and Vicious empties his cup.

"I'm starving, and this is taking forever. Not enough ketchup, either," he grumbles, casting the nearly empty bottle on the table a dark look.

Vicious nods as Spike stubs out his cigarette, clenching his fist to stop the small cut on his index finger from bleeding.

"With all the Red Eye they're dealing," he remarks casually as they walk toward the door, "you'd think they'd want to keep their customers happy."

"Stop, both of you!" shouts the cashier in a raspy voice, just starting on her second cigarette. "You didn't pay!"

The air smells like burning tobacco and blood as Spike turns, grinning, to pull a detonator out of his jacket as smoothly as he had the cigarette.

Someone screams. The cashier dives under the counter. Spike and Vicious are out the door just as the explosion starts to roar.

The plate glass window explodes, fire spitting out of the storefront like an angry dragon. Someone stumbles out, on fire and screaming, and Spike puts a bullet through his head as casually as he might button his suit.

A second body clutching a bucket falls through the window maw, and Vicious puts a bullet in her head, too – just in case.

Spike winks at Vicious with his right eye, clicks the safety on his gun into the place, and holds up the rose as if he's about to attach it his lapel like a boutonniere.

"Classy," Vicious remarks dryly.

Spike laughs and points at the burning diner.

"I'm always disappointed when my eggs are too well done," he complains with a shrug.

"A little messy," Vicious says, holstering his gun, his movements fluid and serpent-like.

They stand there for a while, watching as the flames lick up everything – the booths, the grill, the people – until finally, just as the dawn is peeling back the sky and whiting out the neon, the smoke starts to rise.

"Good night," Spike says to the blackened restaurant, and throws the wilted rose into the smoldering ash.

As they turn away, sirens scream in the distance.

"Out with a bang," Vicious remarks.

Spike stops, turns to him with a ghastly grin, and feels like the true rising Syndicate star he is. He points one bleeding finger at Vicious, as if cocking a gun, and lets it recoil with a flourish.

_"Bang."_


End file.
